There's one thing about the Eastwood style—economy. He rarely exceeds his scheduled shooting days or his budget, frequently saving his investors money. His crew is usually the same, although, typically, his has survived many of his frequent collaborators like the Surtees family of cinematographers, composer Jerry Fielding and his long-time production designer Henry Bumstead. His early films are full of flashy zooms, rack-focus tricks and other director star-turns, but he's lost those. In style, he became more like Don Siegel than Sergio Leone, with just a hint of Samuel Fuller—just cantankerous enough to irk people. But, on-set he's prepared, quiet, rarely directing his actors but collaborating with them, and rather than shouting a blustery "Action!" to start filming, he'll merely say "When you're ready." He's beloved by actors and he's worked with a lot of the best, winning them frequent awards, young and old. He is a throw-back to the business days of film-making, when art would come from challenges, rather than unlimited budgets full of waste. And with no intention of quitting making films, he's still standing, the last of his breed.

"Breezy" (1973)And now for something completely different. The story of a May-December romance between a 19 year old hippie Edith Alice "Breezy" Breezerman (Kay Lenz) and a middle aged real estate salesman (William Holden) was written by "Play Misty For Me" scribe Jo Heims, a friend of Eastwood's (and as "Misty" made a lot of money, the team was a good bet), and although it tries to feel "with it" is basically an apologia for dirty old men. It gave Eastwood the director a chance to work with a big star and a great actor (and also Kay Lenz), without having to get in front of the camera himself, and he mercifully keeps it from getting to icky by photographing the love scenes in silhouette. One of those movies that hasn't aged well, mostly because the argot isn't as much of "a gas" as it used to be, and Lenz doesn't feel natural saying it. Holden, however, can mine gold from tin-ear dialogue. Eastwood's junior film has no action (although Lenz is very naked for a chunk of it), so it had no appeal for his loyal action audiences. And as a director, he makes a few missteps that the studio seems to have taken pains to correct—like a misalligned angle on Holden that was evidently blown up from a wider Eastwood shot. Despite the tinkering, the studio showed no confidence in it and dumped the film in theaters with little promotion (what there was merely accentuated Eastwood's role behind the scenes).**When the two characters go see a movie on a date, the movie they see is "High Plains Drifter."

Next Time: Clint Eastwood, Part 2-"Actor/Director" to "Director/Actor"

* That scene is, as a lot of the film, a direct steal from Kurosawa's "Yojimbo."

** Universal tries to make some hay from a film it had no confidence in, by putting Eastwood's face prominently in the poster, although Eastwood is only seen (barely) as an extra.

*** "Trevanian" was the pen-name of communications professor Dr. Rod Whitaker, who wrote an eclectic series of novels, ranging from spy spoofs to historical fiction between 1973 and his death in 2005. "The Eiger Sanction" and "The Loo Sanction" were Trevanian's first books, featuring an art professor who moonlights as a government assassin, Dr. Jonathon Hemlock. In the "Eiger" book he is recruited by the CII and its monstrous albino overseer to eliminate a climber on a planned assault of the Eiger in the Swiss Alps. By turns whimsical and hard-boiled, the book was a best-seller. But the movie version was dismissed by the author as "vapid."